


The Chocobo Did It

by ninemoons42



Category: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Inception (2010)
Genre: Chocobos, Gen, Music, Musicians, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-15
Updated: 2011-04-15
Packaged: 2017-10-18 02:48:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chocobos, preludes, and meteors, oh my.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chocobo Did It

  
title: The Chocobo Did It  
author: [](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**ninemoons42**](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/)  
characters: Arthur, Eames, Ariadne, OMC.  
warnings: One of the drafts I ended up finishing while I was wrestling with my Remix Redux fic. I think this one faceplanted on the way to a proper plot.  
Lots of talking about Final Fantasy, because here Ariadne and Eames are both fans. There aren't any actual pairings per se, since this is more of an Arthur-and-Eames UST kinda thing. Links have been provided for the music that accompanies each section of the story. [Warning: LSS alert - and I don't say that lightly! XD] If Sephiroth is triggery for you, you might want to skip this.  
Thanks to [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/kiyala/profile)[**kiyala**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/kiyala/) for looking this over, and to [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/laria_gwyn/profile)[**laria_gwyn**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/laria_gwyn/) for telling me the truth, as always.  
disclaimer: I don't own the original story or the characters. Not making any profit, just playing in the sandbox.  
summary: Chocobos, preludes, and meteors, oh my.

  
[Swing de Chocobo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTpaSMjXgeQ)  
The job is relatively simple: there's a musician. He's trying to finish the album that his sponsors have commissioned from him. The problem is that he has too many ideas in his head.

So he's asked them to take out all of the other ideas, at least temporarily.

"Wait," Ariadne asked, after she's done processing the idea. "He wants us to clear his head?"

"He wants us to be his temporary brain bleach," Eames laughs, and he sets down a tray of coffees, passes out the steaming cups.

It's an unusually cool spring in New York, and he is actually not wearing anything visually offensive. Arthur is willing to overlook the puffy vest in fluorescent orange, since Eames is walking around today's office in a long-sleeved black turtleneck.

[Okay, there's a strip of some truly heinous plaid poking out his sleeves, but Arthur can overlook that. He's become quite good at it.]

"...Okay," Ariadne is saying, "but he expects to get those ideas back, right?" No one answers and she whirls on them, coffee completely forgotten. "Arthur?"

"We are not stealing his ideas, Ariadne, not this time," he finally says after a few minutes, and he's fully prepared when she stomps hurriedly over to him and punches him in the shoulder, when she mutters "Thanks for scaring me, asshole" under her breath at him.

"Suggestions for where we put his ideas, then?" Eames asks, and he's tearing into the other bag that he brought back. Warm smell of sugar and dough rising in the air.

"Bank vault," Arthur says, and he swipes the cinnamon-sugared cruller from the bag, sticks his tongue out at Eames.

"Mail it to him after he releases the album?" Ariadne says, and she waits for Eames to unwrap his breakfast sub before she snatches up the bag for herself.

"That sounds like a more practical plan. Ah to be young again, and to have an iron gut," Eames laughs as she pulls out a bag of potato chips and a cheeseburger.

"Back to work," Arthur says, but mildly, and he's pleased when the other two snap back to attention - although they're also both still eating.

"Ideas for a maze, then?" Ariadne says. "What do we know about him, Arthur?"

"He's a jazz musician in real life, with influences including Shibuya-kei and bossa nova. But his real background is in piano - and that's what he's using for the album. We want him to ignore the jazz influences temporarily; we want to steer him back toward his classical roots."

"So a club, or the conservatory that he graduated from," Ariadne says, and she takes a huge bite out of her burger before beginning to sketch. "One dream level, but probably several floors. I could use you both in the dream. Who's extractor?"

"Me," Arthur says. "Unless you expect something like random school trolling."

Ariadne laughs, hums a few bars of some song Arthur doesn't know."So we'll have one side of the school turn into a sort of jazz-club practice thing, and then a corridor full of lockers, and then transition to the classical-music side, which will encourage him to discard all the other ideas."

"Objection," Eames says. "You forgot about the part where we're emptying his mind. I vote we go the other way: he gets into a jam session so he can remember all the ideas he needs to forget. Then, once he has all the ideas out, we tell him to put them all away for another time. Lockers, so we can show him that we're vanishing the ideas, and then we sit him in front of his piano."

"Wouldn't that be dangerous? We could get attacked if we make his ideas actually disappear."

"The point, Ariadne, is that he's unloading - he has to come into the dream knowing that he has to try and forget some things," Arthur says, and drains his coffee. The tricky part will be to vanish those ideas from his mind, from his subconscious. We might catch some trouble from the projections there, but it shouldn't be much; after all, he wants to forget."

Ariadne thinks about it, humming some more, and then she nods. "Okay, I think I've got it."

///

Unfortunately, the first walkthrough doesn't go so well for Arthur.

Ariadne, on the other hand.... She bursts out laughing the moment she recognizes the bright, brassy tune, once she sees Eames leading the brass section, in an ivory shirt and brightly-colored suspenders.

Arthur sighs and rolls his eyes. He doesn't have a clue what the band is playing.

But Ariadne is giggling and muttering something that sounds like "Kweh!" under her breath, over and over again.

Topside, she's still laughing as they wake up, and she points at Eames and hiccups, "How long have you been wanting to do that?"

"Years," Eames says, wearing a shit-eating grin. "The opportunity really doesn't come up as often as I'd like."

Arthur turns away before he can do something stupid, like try to smile back at Eames.

Ariadne is saying "Kweh!" again, and she and Eames are laughing, and he's forgotten.

[Prelude / Crystal Theme](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqJtYdFV3To)  
"Eames, how many musical instruments can you play, exactly?" Ariadne asks during the second practice run.

"Just trumpet and piano, though I'm of course nowhere near our client in talent. Good for you, yes? Slots right into our plans. We should always be so lucky."

Ariadne grins and flips him off.

"And this?" Arthur asks as he walks into the classroom. There's a Steinway baby grand up in front, and a dozen chairs arranged in a semi-circle.

Eames keeps playing. Soft, lilting, delicate. His rough hands dancing lightly over the keys. "Sing," he says, suddenly, and he winks at Arthur before nodding at Ariadne.

"Seriously?" she asks, startled.

"We're dreaming," Eames says, amused, and he grins at her until she sighs, and takes a deep breath, and begins.

But she's not singing any words; she's following Eames and his melody, and in here, she sounds like she's an entire choir, the echoes giving the distinct impression of other singers.

And, all right, Ariadne can sing - that has to be her real voice because she sounds exactly like she does in the waking world, and they all know she's no forger - but Arthur finds himself watching the movements of Eames's broad shoulders. He goes up and down the keyboard, again and again, wrists and elbows perfectly aligned even as he crosses his hands. The piece takes on richer tones, deeper meaning, and he has to remind himself that they're only dreaming.

More importantly, Arthur has to remind himself that the relationship between him and Eames has to remain strictly professional, all signals to the contrary be damned.

By the end of the piece, as Ariadne finally gives up and stops singing, Eames has coaxed crystalline chimes from the piano and he's humming, and he's not as good as Ariadne is.

He's better.

Arthur walks out and he shoots himself out of the dream, and he ignores the surprised/hurt/amused smirk on Eames's face when they wake up.

[One Winged Angel [Advent Children]](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5st0b3ln5U)  
"Arthur?" Ariadne yells over the din of things falling down, of people yelling and fighting.

The one thing they've all forgotten is that a jazz club - even if it's one in a school - is also a fight waiting to happen.

And all it takes for this one to fall to pieces is for their client to improvise on Cibo Matto's "Sugar Water".

They almost immediately lose track of Eames because they're too busy protecting the client.

But he, at least, is enjoying himself, because he's humming and trying to write in his notebook, and he's cackling as he composes.

The strangely musical din grows louder and louder, and it sounds like people are actually singing arias, all the while they're happily beating the shit out of each other - and then suddenly the music dies down into an ominous, long rumble of deep voices.

"Oh, shit," Ariadne swears, and she starts laughing like she's finally gone insane, and she grabs the client's shoulder with one hand, Arthur's wrist with the other. "Come on! Boss battle time!"

Even he knows what that means, and he conjures his SCAR-L and covers the other two.

He doesn't know why his eyes are suddenly drawn to the ceiling.

CRACK.

Spiderweb of lines, a sickly light from outside, shadows like things falling out of the sky - and he shouts, "DOWN!" a split second before someone starts up what sounds like a hell of an electric guitar solo, and Ariadne shields the client's head with her own body as the roof finally falls in with an almighty CRASH.

Smoke and dust everywhere, the sounds of the fighting still all around them, and the center of the club's nothing more than a raging inferno.

Ariadne pops up from her hiding place even as the screaming echoes all around and the client, too, peers out interestedly.

Arthur looks warily around from his chunk of cover.

Someone is standing in the middle of the fire.

Broad back. Short, shaggy hair.

The tattoos on Eames's skin are rearranging themselves.

Arthur squints, and he can almost read the writing flowing across the forger's back, his mind fumbling to remember the Latin he'd studied at school:

Noli manere in memoria  
Saevam iram et dolorem  
Ferum terribile fatum  
Ille iterum veniet

Qui mortem invitavis  
Poena fuesta natus  
Noli nomen vocare  
Ille iterum veniet

Arthur's mind races as he translates, as best as he can given his surroundings: "He will not be a mere memory...rage and sorrow, terrifying fate, and he who comes again...."

And then Eames looks over his shoulder at all of them, and he smiles - and it's no smile they've ever seen before. Full of dark promise, as his eyes turn an unearthly shade of green.

He's looking directly at Arthur when he says, softly and clearly, "I have a present for you."

"DOWN, ARTHUR," Ariadne shrieks.

He disobeys.

And Eames pins him down with another knowing smile.

He's still on his knees, still staring, and Eames gestures once and Arthur thinks he sees the unmistakable shadowsharp glint off metal, a long blade of some kind.

The dream falls apart in flames, to the jangling screams of tortured music, to laughter and the distant shouts of people fighting.

///

Arthur's shout of "What the hell was that?!" is drowned out by their client grabbing each one of them in an ecstatic hug, and his babbling: "That's it, I'll write the album on the end of the world! A meteor and a flash of final life! You guys have been wonderful! How do I credit you on the liner notes?"

"No...need?" Ariadne says, after a brief startled silence. "We just gave you a push in the right direction but you had everything you needed inside your subconscious?"

"That's very modest of you," the client says, and he plants a loud, ostentatious kiss on her cheek.

"It's our job," Eames says.

"And you did a great one. Very well, I'll have my people wire you your payment in a few minutes, and I will simply recover my ideas at my leisure. Thank you, so much."

And Arthur still doesn't get an explanation because as soon the composer is gone Ariadne is throwing things at Eames: her compact, a stick of bubble gum, her right shoe, three erasers in rapid succession.

"Motherfucker! I knew you were an FF fanboy, but really - SEPHIROTH?"

"It worked, didn't it?" Eames says, smugly, and he's caught everything she's thrown at him and he deposits it all on her cleared worktable. "And we wound up giving him exactly what we wanted."

"A kick in the ass to start composing?"

"An idea," Arthur says.

"Exactly. Inception made painless."

They all exchange looks.

"DON'T tell Cobb," Ariadne says, and then she giggles and then she breaks into a full-on madwoman's laugh. "Ahahahaha! He's gonna kill us! Why am I laughing?! AHAHAHAHAHA!"

Arthur smacks Eames on the back of his head, grinning, and they wait for Ariadne to compose herself before heading out to dinner and drinks.

[Victory Theme](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YCN-a0NsNk)  
Arthur is hooked up to his PASIV for some recreational dreaming; it's a regular thing for him, he does it every few days so he can get back to normal, uninterrupted sleep.

And yes, he's been quite envious of the others since the job with the composer, because it's not every day that they get a chance to actually use their hobbies in the dreamshare, and Eames and Ariadne have just had that chance handed to them, and they've pretty much run away with it like giggling children.

He's dreaming about sitting in one of the music rooms at his high school, the full moon streaming in through the curtains. Here are the backing band's equipment, here is a big boom box sitting near his feet. Here is a fedora, navy blue pinstriped in purple, on his head.

If he closes his eyes, he can hear the distant echoes of all the songs the school choirhas covered, and instead of running all together into a tuneless din, he builds with them. He puts them together into a distant humming, a faraway soothing murmur.

He's smiling as he conducts the BGM, and he's using a pen to beat out the tempo - and suddenly something runs past the open door. Something small and yellow, no more than knee-height on him.

He keeps the music going, but he puts the pen down, performs a drawing motion, and he has a pistol in his hand - that isn't his customary Glock for some reason.

It's Eames's sidearm, his USP Compact, and, all right, Arthur actually can take a hint. He doesn't change the pistol into anything else.

On silent feet to the door. Whatever it was that ran past is tap-tap-tapping away down a corridor, around a corner. Arthur checks both ways before he keeps going. The tapping grows louder.

And the classroom he's walking into is full of yellow, birdlike, incongruously furry little things. Chocobos, his mind tells him, belatedly. He'd looked them up after coming home from the job. Their wings flapping as they babble at each other, and after a moment of listening Arthur realizes they are all only saying one sound: "Kweh!"

He flashes back to the walkthrough with Eames playing the trumpet and the music he's been conducting drops away into the cheerful tune - and it's toe-tappingly infectious, and he changes his jeans and t-shirt into a suit with a pattern to match his hat, undoes the buttons on his waistcoat.

And he smiles as he dances and the chocobos all call "Kweh!" together and start jumping, flapping, dancing around him. The floor flashes beneath his feet - fire, green and silver.

He's smiling when the kick comes, and he's smiling when he calculates for the time difference between Barcelona and Mombasa [two hours] and starts dialing.

///

Eames wakes up to ten notes in a triumphant fanfare.

 _Caller ID: Arthur._

He doesn't know why he's smiling; it's the middle of the night and Arthur should know better.

But he's laughing when he picks up. "Hello, Arthur."

 **fin**   



End file.
